York County deer hunters not fazed by chronic wasting disease, plan to take to the woods

The disease has not been found in the wild population.

Ken Doll feeds the deer he owns on his Warrington Township property. He does not sell deer anymore. "I have them here as pets now," he said. Doll attended a meeting on chronic wasting disease at the York Expo Center earlier this month. He pointed out that other states have been dealing with the disease for decades. "I'm not going to worry about it," he said. ( YORK DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS--JASON PLOTKIN)

This is one of the deer that Ken Doll of Warrington Township owns. Chronic wasting disease was discovered in two captive deer on an Adams County farm. The state Game Commission is monitoring to see if the disease has spread into the wild deer herd population. ( YORK DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS--JASON PLOTKIN)

On Monday, Pennsylvania
hunters will take to the woods
for the first day of firearms
season, but now more than
ever, they'll be wondering if the
deer they shoot might be infected with chronic wasting
diease.

The deadly neurological disease was found in two captive
deer in Adams County this fall.

This deer roams on the property of Ken Doll of Warrington Township. Some hunters are worried that chronic wasting disease will spread into the wild deer population after two captive deer in Adams County had it. ( YORK DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS--JASON PLOTKIN)

In addition, a captive deer
that had lived at the same farm
where the state's first case of
the disease was found escaped
into the wild last month.

State Game Commission of´
ficials have established a disease management area in parts
of York and Adams counties to
monitor for the disease in the
wild. So
far, it
has not
been
found.

"If it
got into
the wild
population, it
would be the worst thing for
Pennsylvania," said Mike
Strickhouser, South Central Regional Director of the Unified
Sportsmen of Pennsylvania.
"It's something we need to take
serious."

Sorting it out

Nathaniel "Nat" Miller of
Dover Township hunts on his
family's farm in Conewago
Township, which is in the
deer management area. He
still plans to go out this fall,
and if he harvests a deer,
he'll take it to be tested.

"We've just got to live with
it," he said outside a recent
meeting on the disease at the
York Expo Center. "We've
just got to deal with it as best
we can and go from there."

It's still too early and confusing, and not enough facts
are available yet about how
the disease might affect the
wild population, Miller said.

While he's worried about
what the disease might mean
for future generations of
hunters, Miller said, he's also
concerned about everything
else going on in the world.

Robert Korte of Red Lion
said he, his wife and two children hunt, and they share
their harvest with others.

Korte said he doesn't hunt
in the disease management
area, but if he did, he would
be going elsewhere.

While research shows no
evidence that humans are at
risk for the disease, people
are advised not to eat the
meat of an infected deer, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.

Korte pointed out that
chronic wasting disease is in
the same family as "mad cow
disease," which is believed to
be transmissible to humans.

Chronic wasting disease can spread through close contact of deer. These deer belong to Ken Doll of Warrington Township. The disease was found in captive deer in Adams County. ( YORK DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS--JASON PLOTKIN)

"I don't want to take a
chance," Korte said.

Barry and Betty Kellison
of Warrington Township attended the meeting at the
fairgrounds about the disease
because they are concerned.
Barry Kellison said he has a
friend in West Virginia whom
he hunts with, and the disease is found among wild
deer in that state. If it gets
into Pennsylvania, the deer
herd will be dying.

"It's going to be bad for all
the hunters," he said.

Barry Kellison said he
still plans to go out and hunt.
His wife, Betty, said they are
taking the Game Commission
at its word that the disease is
not in the wild herd.

"They're doing the testing,
so they should know," she
said.

The problem, she said, is
how long it will take to get
test results back for a deer
that a hunter has tested for
the disease. State Game Commission officials have said it
will take two weeks or longer.
Hunters want to eat and get
their meat processed.

Worried about the future
of hunting

Rick Watts of Monaghan
Township said he shot two
doe in the disease management area during archery
season, and he'll be going
back out.

"I'm not fearful of it right
now," he said.

Watts said he worries
what impact the disease will
have on the future of the
sport in Pennsylvania if it
does get into the wild population.

He fears that hunting license sales will drop. Those
sales help to protect more
than 400 species of wild animals in the state.

"We'd lose billions of dollars," Watts said.

Some area businesses are
concerned about the affect on
the hunting industry, too.

"It could be devastating
over the long term," said
Harry Strohman, co-owner of
J.L. Miller Sons Quality Meats
in Spring Garden Township.

He hopes researchers can
find a solution to the problem. For now, he says, the
state Game Commission is
doing the best it can.

Terry Kauffman, owner of
Terry's Taxidermy in Dover
Township, said he hopes it
doesn't hit. If it does, it's
probably going to be bad
unless it can be stopped.

Chronic wasting disease
fatigue

The disease does not present the "fire in the Sistine
Chapel" that it did about a
decade ago, said Matt Dunfee,
coordinator for the Chronic
Wasting Disease Alliance.

Years ago, wildlife biologists were concerned the disease would wipe out the deer
and elk herd, he said. But
states that have been dealing
with it for decades have not
seen dramatic reductions.

What research has shown
is a younger herd because
the disease is long lived,
Dunfee said. Does can still
give birth to fawns, but deer
with the disease do not live to
an old age.

In some states, he said,
hunters are just tired of dealing with the disease. Some
leave notes on the deer
sample, saying they don't
want to know if the test result
is positive, Dunfee said.

A Penn State expert also cautions hunters about overreacting to the disease. It
might have been in low levels
in the state but not been detected, said David Wolfgang,
extension veterinarian and
field studies director in veterinary and biomedical sciences.

Hunters in other states
have learned to live with it,
and it hasn't ruined their
sport, he said in a news release. The number of licenses
sold in Wisconsin, for example, have almost returned to
levels seen before chronic
wasting disease was discovered there.

Still, it is a disease that
needs to be taken seriously,
and hunters and the state
Game Commission need to be
pulling in the same direction,
Wolfgang said.

"If we work really hard
over the next year or two, we
can probably corral this
pretty well," he said.

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